On A Run

by Livingston, Kimberly

  But the truth was, she wasn’t used to paying attention to how she felt. Finally, she decided that what she felt was right. Really all right, for the first time in the longest time that she could remember.

  When Hannah went back to her room, she ordered room service and jumped in for a quick shower. She had dried and dressed long before the knock arrived on her door. After dinner she tried to write, as she had promised Sheila she would do, but she found that she couldn’t concentrate. She turned on the television, an extremely rare event for her. After one run through the channels she remembered why and turned the set back off. Finally, Hannah picked up the only reading material she had, a copy of one of her books that she was selling downstairs. She opened the cover and began to read.

  “Tash dragged the back of her wrist across her ebony forehead, clearing the sweat that had gathered there. She stared for a moment at the crimson sky, leaving her hand at her temple to lessen the blinding light from the setting sun. The billowing white clouds raced across the aqua sky, like rafts on a raging river. The scent of the drying wheat wafted into Tash’s nostrils, producing both a feeling of passion and exhaustion in her. This was her land. It was a blessing and a burden, but it was hers to bear.”

  “Who reads this garbage?” Hannah wondered, slapping the book closed and staring at the picture on the cover of a gorgeous young black woman with heaving bosom.

  Hannah had learned how to write in school. She had learned the rules of grammar, she knew all the descriptive words, and she could develop compelling characters and subplots and ways to hook readers from the beginning until the end, leaving them wanting more. But Hannah was no more like the characters she wrote about than she was the tourists that were overrunning her town at the moment. Hannah wrote these kinds of novels because they paid the bills and they filled the silence that she had in her home.

  No that wasn’t true. She wrote because she loved to write, though she worried more and more of late that writing would become more of a job than a passion for her.

  Hannah put the book back into her briefcase and walked to the window. She stared out over the avenue below, not focusing on anything really, but letting the blur of the lights and the movement of the people numb her into a kind of calm. She closed the sheers and wandered to her bed, sliding beneath the cool covers without undressing. She lay there, watching the light recede from the day, staring into the room in front of her but focusing on nothing. There was a heaviness that lay over her like a wool blanket on a midwinter night.

  And she slept again. Two nights of uninterrupted sleep was a record for Hannah. So that when she woke up on Sunday and peered out on the sunny day she felt completely relaxed with what she was about to do.

  The routine of the conference morning was the same, and Hannah enjoyed the day’s key note speaker. He was funny and spoke of nothing at all that Hannah was presenting for her break out session.

  Hannah did the exact same lecture to a completely different crowd, and looked around the room more as she spoke this time. Her audience was attentive, hanging on her every word, some taking copious notes about the wisdom they thought she was exuding. It was fun, Hannah decided, to feel like an expert on a topic. And when compared to the novice writers in the room, she was. Despite the numbers of books in the world, a comparative few number of people could say they had written a book, fewer still were lucky enough to have published one and most could never make a living at it. Hannah was overcome by the feeling of gratitude she felt for being blessed to be one of these people. For a moment in time she was amazed at her own incredible life.

  After the talk, she had a greater number of people waiting to have her sign her books. Perhaps it was that people waited for the second day to see who they really wanted to have a keepsake from. Or perhaps it was just Hannah’s disposition for the day that pulled them to her. She found herself chatting and laughing with the fans while putting her name with a flourish onto the inside cover of the book they had just bought. Hannah realized that she was actually enjoying being near complete strangers when the last of the line walked away from the table, reading what Hannah had written.

  Hannah glanced at her watch and gasped, seeing that it was nearly time to be inside the park. She jumped up, grabbing her bag, and practically tripped over the leg of the table in her hurry to be on her way, losing her sandal in the process.

  Missing the irony, Hannah quickly slid the shoe back on her foot and headed in the same direction as most of the people around her.

  The fact that Hannah was going to be late actually helped her in her nervousness as she was so intent on navigating the crowd and the line to get her bag checked that she barely registered that there was a crowd and a line. Besides, the excitement of the people around her was catching and she couldn’t help but begin to smile. She felt happy to be part of a common purpose. When she handed her ticket to the person at the ticket booth she felt like she was about to embark on the biggest adventure of her life! And just like that she was spit out the other side along with what seemed like thousands of other adventurers.

  Just for a moment Hannah was lost, until straight ahead she saw a Mickey Mouse figure designed into the plants of a hillside just below a train station. And right in front of the Mickey Mouse, as promised, stood Daniel. She had worried she wouldn’t recognize him when surrounded by so many people, but there he was, standing with his profile to her.

  Hannah stopped. Daniel was letting go of the hand of a little girl while leaning to kiss a woman on the cheek. For just a split moment it seemed as though everything froze, but then the bustle of the thousands of people entering the park and pushing past Hannah, now stopped in the middle of it all, brought her back to reality.

  Flushed, she turned immediately and tried to push her way upstream and back out the gates through which she had just so excitedly passed. It was useless. Though she was trying to move forward, in fact she was being pushed backwards.

  “There you are!” His voice was distinguished from the rest of the crowd’s. “I was worried you were going to stand me up.”

  Hannah turned and faced Daniel, biting her lips, trying to keep control. She didn’t know what to do, though every nerve ending in her body was screaming “run!” “I was caught signing books,” she muttered, not wanting to fall apart in this mass of people.

  “That’s alright; I was just worried about you. My sister’s kids couldn’t stand hanging out here waiting so I just sent them in. We will meet up with them in a little bit if that is okay.”

  All this took Hannah a moment to register. His sister. His sister’s kids. Hannah felt as though she were trying to think while sound asleep. Daniel’s voice pulled her back.

  “Are you ready?” He smiled at her in a way that slowed her racing heart in some ways, and sped it up more in others.

  “Um, yea, I guess so.” Hannah felt Daniel take her hand and begin to pull her slowly, gently, along with him, along with the crowd. They were all funneling through a tunnel-like opening under the train tracks. Hannah could not yet see the other end, and choked back the anxiety that threatened to cut off her airflow. She focused on Daniel’s voice wafting back through the general din of the crowd.

  “This is always my favorite part, when you first pass through the tunnel to get into Disneyland. You can get into the park from the monorail as well, but I prefer to enter through the tunnel.”

  By the time his sentence was over, they had made it out the other side and the crowd dispersed some. Hannah had kept her eyes on the back of Daniel’s shirt, a white polo, and had not looked up at all yet.

  “You okay?”

  She looked into his concerned eyes.

  “Yea, I am not big into crowds.” This was the understatement of the century.

  “It is okay. I am here. I will take care of you.” Daniel’s words were sincere, not mocking. He neither questioned nor dismissed her fears. “I have a way of being in Disneyland that makes the crowds disappear. You wait and see. The first thing you have to do is
look up.”

  Hannah thought this was a funny statement. She was, in fact, quite short. This was, in part perhaps, the cause of her claustrophobia in crowds. She often found herself staring into the midst of a group of people, unable to see anything at all.

  “There are so many things to see here, but if you focus on the crowd you will never see any of it. I will keep you from bumping into anything; I just want you to look around you.”

  As directed, Hannah did just that and found herself looking straight down a street lined with subtly colored old fashioned buildings. Everywhere she looked there was some detail to see. A horse drawn wagon passed behind her, driven by a man in a red and white striped shirt. There were streetlamps on every corner. She was beginning to see words painted on the windows of the different buildings; Disneyland Bank, Town Hall. She picked out the Disneyland Fire Station. Hannah also noticed how green and groomed everything was. The grass was perfect, though she was sure people must trample on it all day long. No, she saw that generally the grass was protected by small ropes. There were trees and flowers and plants dotted everywhere, so that it felt truly like a park.

  Hannah heard a noise and turned around to look behind her, up the sweeping stairs to the train station. She had heard an old fashioned coal (or was it steam?) train pull into the station, and now saw a bustle of people filing off. Then heard an indistinguishable “All ‘board!” and the train began to puff, once again, out of the station and down the tracks. She watched it until it curved away and out of sight.

  “Where does that go?” She turned to Daniel, who was watching with her.

  “It goes the whole way around the park. We will ride on it later. I love coming here with someone new. I pay attention to things I may have forgotten to pay attention to.”

  If Hannah had cared, she may have been jealous to think of who else he might have brought here, but at the moment, Hannah had not a thought in the world. She just let her senses be inundated by sights and sounds and smells. She allowed Daniel, as he had promised, guide her down Main Street, expertly weaving through the crowd. She peered into shops as they sauntered by, a magic shop, a candy shop, a movie house. A store filled with art and one filled with clothes. Hannah had never been one to go into gift stores, though Breckenridge was replete with them. But she felt an urge to go into every one of these shops, to suck up the knowledge they might provide her about this new land she was experiencing. They then came out of the alley of stores to where the street split into different directions. In front of her was a castle, but it wasn’t this that held her attention. What she saw at the end of the street was a scene play out in front of her, one that seated her feeling of well-being in this place.

  An adorable young girl, she couldn’t have been more than three years old, middle eastern in decent by the looks of her, began to whimper at first and then to cry in earnest. Hannah looked around but saw no one close by who seemed to be this child’s family. By the time Hannah looked back to the girl she saw that three different adults, a well-dressed woman with perfectly groomed blonde hair, a large man with a child tagging along at his side, and a late teen aged boy, had all descended upon this little girl, offering her comfort and organizing efforts to locate the child’s family. Within moments a tiny woman, scarf covering her head, came running up to the little girl, smothering her with anxious kisses and looking indebted to the adults who were, seeing that the little girl was no longer lost, already meandering away to join their respective parties. The whole scene took no more than a moment, and yet it defined security and unity to Hannah.

  “Uncle Daniel!”

  Hannah heard the exclamation of a young girl and turned to see the same woman and two children she had seen at the front gate approaching.

  “We got fast passes to the Indiana ride!”

  “We are ready!” Daniel said to the girl. He then turned to his sister and introduced Hannah. “Linda, this is the author I was telling you about. Hannah, this is my sister, Linda, and my niece Anastasia,” Anastasia smiled shyly at Hannah, “and this little monster is Christopher!” Daniel scooped the boy up into his arms; Christopher squealed and kicked in protest until Daniel set him back on to the ground. “Alright then, are we going or what?”

  The children and Linda were already heading off in a new direction, obviously knowing where they were going. Daniel took Hannah’s hand in his again and gently led her along behind. Hannah noticed the softness of his hand; in fact, for a moment could think of nothing more than the intimacy of it.

  Soon though, she was once again mesmerized by the sights they were passing by. Daniel led her across a wooden bridge under a sign stating simply “Adventureland”, and truly it appeared that that was where they were. The bridge was lined with tiki torches and a variety of masks. They veered to the left and Hannah found herself passing thatched huts with displays of jungle type ware – a fruit stand with bananas and pineapple, a clothing shop with panama hats and tropical shirts, wild animal toys were everywhere. The street narrowed and curved and where Main Street had been open and park like, this new street was overhung with trees so that there was the feeling of entering a jungle. There were throngs of people. Hannah knew that it was all make believe, and yet she could picture herself in a marketplace in South America or Africa. Her imaginative mind began to see the people as either locals jostling her and competing for her attention, or as tourists being sweet talked by savvy shop keepers, enticed to buy from them. Hannah immediately began to devise a novel around this setting, taking notes of sights and sounds to add as details later.

  They caught up with Daniel’s family – how they hadn’t lost them in the crowd was now a mystery to Hannah. Christopher clasped Daniel’s free hand and dragged him up a planked ramp. Hannah noticed a sea of people in what looked to be a holding area to the left.

  “What are they waiting for?” she asked Daniel.

  “This ride.” Daniel shook his head ruefully.

  “We don’t have to wait?” Hannah wondered if Daniel was some sort of VIP that she didn’t know about.

  “We have fast passes!” Anastasia chimed in. “They let you cut to the front of the line!”

  “Anyone can get them,” Daniel explained. “I am not sure why people don’t use them. They really do make the park more enjoyable.”

  Hannah would have liked to ask more about this, but soon she found herself winding down tight tunnels to an underground cavern. The kids stopped suddenly, pulling on what Hannah assumed were fake poles seemingly holding up the roof. They looked like all the rest of the poles in the row, but these obviously activated a mechanism that made the roof seem – just for a moment – to be coming down on their heads. The kids laughed uproariously and then continued on ahead. They stopped at another part of the attraction to pull on a rope, activating a voice from below to call out. These two obviously knew where all the hidden tricks were, as the people in front of them in line hadn’t stopped to do these things.

  They continued their winding way down, Hannah wondered how far down, below the surface. They were ushered along, pausing for a few moments as the line bunched up, and then stringing out again as it moved forward. They finally turned into a room that Hannah saw held a tremendous amount of people, and vehicles that they were being loaded into.

  But she didn’t have long to watch as she suddenly found herself being led up a set of stairs away from the large room. They then turned and went across a walkway and then back down another set of stairs to where they had just been. It was a masterful way to keep a large amount of people moving while they loaded the ride ahead.

  Finally at the bottom of the stairs a worker or “cast member” as their name tag stated, dressed in a safari outfit asked, “How many?”

  “Four!” Christopher yelled confidently.

  “No, five!” Anastasia amended, smiling back at Hannah.

  “Two in row one and three in row two.” The cast member directed in a code that Hannah did not quite understand”

  “First row!” Ana
stasia yelled excitedly. “Let Hannah drive!”

  Before Hannah knew it she was being pulled by this young girl to sit next to her in the front seat of a large and battered jeep looking vehicle. Indeed there was a steering wheel, but, much to Hannah’s relief, it did not move and was obviously not functional.

  Daniel and Christopher and Linda climbed in the row behind them, Daniel gave Hannah’s shoulder a squeeze and leaned back to buckle his seat belt. Anastasia was doing the same and showing Hannah how to buckle hers and she had barely gotten hers fastened when the car started forward. It stopped moments later so they could be checked for safety by another cast member and then the car took off again, not quickly, but for good this time.

  Hannah put her hands on the steering wheel as Anastasia giggled beside her. She had no idea what to expect and what she got was certainly not what she would have guessed.

  The car moved along its track, speeding up, careening around curves, slowing down, riding over seemingly bumpy roads and a broken bridge, all along taking her past memories that she had of watching the Indiana Jones movies with her father when she was little. It was one of his favorite movies and she had watched it many times. The ride was true to the spirit of the movie.

  Hannah burst out laughing as the car rocked and lurched and chugged and sputtered. She ducked instinctively when “darts” of air blew past her out of the pipes of voodoo men lining the walls. And when a large ball appeared to be coming down onto the hood of the car she let out an involuntary screech. She was embarrassed immediately, of course, when it turned out to be nothing. She knew it couldn’t be, but it all appeared so real.

  Before she knew it the ride was over, the car pulled slowly up into the bay where they had first climbed into it and they were being instructed to exit to their rights. Hannah looked back and saw a new group of people, indistinguishable from themselves, climbing in just behind them, ready for their turn for adventure.